Author Archives: John Lacken

Irish Bishops are Harming MarriageThe Irish Bishops are doing serious harm to Catholic marriage and family life with their ‘Amoris’ programme which is being promoted to every parish in Ireland. The key to understanding why this is, comes at the beginning of the programme where it states. “The programme takes, as its starting point, people’s experience of love and their hopes and fears with regard to marriage and family” Situational EthicsThis is the basis for what is called ‘situation’ or … Read More

The Greatest Commandment“And one of them, a doctor of the law, asking him, tempting him: Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and … Read More

A Dark and Evil DayAlthough most people are blissfully unaware of it, the week of Friday 19th January 2018, was one of the darkest and most evil weeks in the history of the Irish nation. Grown men and women, many of them parents of children, all of them elected representatives, stood up in the Irish parliament chamber one after the other, to outline the conditions under which they believed that certain human beings, members of our nation, should be allowed … Read More

The Majesty of God“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” (John 1:1-5) The opening sentences of St John’s Gospel, beautifully and simply … Read More

This Bishop is in DenialThis week, I would like to thank those of you who have written to Bishop Raymond Browne, the Bishop of Kerry, regarding the promotion of the LGBT agenda to the youth of his diocese. I would also like to encourage more of you to get in contact with him. Bishop Browne has responded by saying; “Be assured that the diocese and I uphold fully the Church’s teaching on sexuality. We seek as best we can to … Read More

Those Who Promote Marriage will be AttackedI am conscious that I have been repeating Sr Lucia’s words to Cardinal Caffara regularly in my talks and in my articles. She said that “anyone who works for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be fought and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue.” I have begun lately to notice that we are indeed under attack. The attacks take on various forms. Some are personal in the … Read More

Great ConferenceIt was great to meet up with so many Catholic Voice readers at last Saturday’s conference in Limerick. For those who were unable to attend, I would like to give an extract from my talk in which we made a very important announcement for next year. Today, those who are leading the main attack on Catholic teaching on marriage and family life come from within the ranks of the Catholic church herself, with many senior prelates contradicting the constant … Read More

My 100th Article for Catholic VoiceToday marks another milestone in my journey with the Catholic Voice newspaper. This is my one hundredth article in Catholic Voice. A centenary of articles during the centenary of Fatima! What began as a simple question to Anthony Murphy, “would you be interested in some articles on marriage and family?”, with the reply, “send me in something and we’ll see”, has turned into a journey of faith exploration. In these turbulent times for the Catholic … Read More

Address to Fathers of FamiliesAt last year’s Catholic Voice conference in Limerick, I made the following address to fathers of families. I am not ignoring mothers, but fathers need to be given a wake-up call because the father is the spiritual and physical head of his family. Make Sure You Know What the Catholic Church Teaches“Fathers, make sure that you are fully conversant with what the Church teaches you about your role as Man, Husband and Father. Make sure that … Read More

The Light of FaithIf you pass by a house during the daytime, and a light happens to be left on in the front room, you will not notice it. Pass by the same house at night, and the same light will be noticeable from far away. The light has not gotten any brighter, but it shines even more clearly because of the surrounding darkness. I think the same is true of our Catholic faith, as the darkness of apostasy grows, … Read More

Filial CorrectionI begin writing this article having just read the “Filial Correction of Pope Francis For the Propagation of Heresies” which has been signed by 62 Catholic academics and pastors from 20 countries. The document begins “With profound grief, but moved by fidelity to our Lord Jesus Christ, by love for the Church…” These words “with profound grief” caused me to reflect on something I noticed some time ago. I have developed a custom whereby after attending Holy Mass in … Read More

Lack of Catechesis I have had some very interesting phone calls recently concerning marriage. One person asked me to write about annulment as there is a perception in some quarters that it is just a form of Catholic divorce. Another person has asked me to write about consent, or rather the lack of it, and the important need for priests to make sure that the proper consent is there, before a marriage takes place. Many years ago, this second person … Read More

Matthew Chapter 24 – PropheticIn recent times I have been struck, time and again by chapter 24 of St Matthew’s Gospel, where Our Lord warns His disciples to be aware of being seduced by false prophets saying, “For many will come in my name saying, I am Christ: and they will seduce many.” (Matthew 24-5). I have often thought about what methods the devil will use to seduce those who seek to live up to the demands of the Catholic … Read More

Cardinal Schonborn’s ErrorsIn my last article, I spoke about a senior cardinal who recently visited Ireland and who erroneously, and contrary to Catholic Church teaching said, that it is possible to answer ‘Yes’ to the first of the five dubia that were submitted to Pope Francis by four other cardinals, one of whom, Cardinal Raymond Burke, is well known to Catholic Voice readers. Normally I do not name the personages concerned in these cases because I want to focus on … Read More

The Confused & Confusing Cardinal A recent headline in an Irish weekly newspaper stated “Children must be priority when marriages fail – top cardinal”. The article then went on to state “One of the Pope’s closest advisers on the family has insisted that when dealing with marital breakdown, the Church must put the needs of children ahead of a simplistic application of rules.” I have to say that I find this problematic, but first I also want to look at … Read More

Many Faithful Catholics feel Isolated and Alone I attended a Mass recently which was celebrated by Fr Shenan Boquet, the president of Human Life International. During the course of his sermon, Fr Boquet told us that we are not alone in this battle. He mentioned how he travels around the world spreading the Gospel of Life and that in each country he visits, there is a group of people who are fighting the battle for life. They may be just … Read More

Thank You for Your Support As I begin writing this article we are just one week into our fund raising campaign for ‘The Lumen Fidei Institute’. In just one week we have managed to raise almost one third of our initial target of €25,000. To those of you who have responded so promptly to this call, a big thank you. Your support and encouragement means so much, not just to me, but to my wife and family as well. I … Read More

Morning Meditation on the Gospel Just over a year ago, as part of my effort to keep up the practice of a daily morning meditation, I decided to take the time to read through St Matthew’s Gospel taking it one chapter at a time. I highly recommend this practice of getting to know the Gospels, with the Catholic caveat, that we are not free to interpret the Gospel’s meaning according to what we think it means, but must always bow … Read More

The Manchester Bombing On Monday 22nd May 2017 at approximately 10.30 in the evening, just after a concert in the Manchester Arena by the American singer Ariana Grande, a suicide bomber detonated a home made explosive device killing himself and twenty two other people and injuring over one hundred others. The ISIS organisation claimed responsibility for the attack. I ask your prayers for all involved in this horrible tragedy. It is somewhat easy to be dispassionate about this event because … Read More

Lack of Ability to Think Rationally In this article I want to cover a couple of different strands of thought which have come up on account of some recent events in my life and which I want to relate to my most recent articles covering lack of catechesis, the failure of the Irish ‘catholic’ education system to pass on the faith to the children that are taught in those schools, and the surrendering of what I called ‘catholic territory’ to … Read More